ème. cookie. [ whispering ] i'm calling the cops. [ police siren wails, car horn blares ] crème. cookie. [ whispering ] you guys have to stop fighting. we're the cops. [ male announcer ] choose your side at oreo.com. km. in his public comments on gun violence, president obama has always gone out of his way to mention his home town. >> as a country, we have been through this too many times, whether it's an elementary school in newtown or a shopping mall in oregon or a temple in wisconsin or a movie theater in aurora or a street corner in chicago, these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods and these children are our children. >> the entire country grappling with what happened at sandy hook, the president has rhetorically erased the line between mass shootings like that and run of the mill shootings that ravage cities every day.

gun violence is gun violence. hideya pendleton was a high school student. she played volleyball. she performed with her school's marching band at president obama's marching band last month. that was january 21st. on january 29th, she and friends caught cover because of rain. it was only a mile from barack and michelle's home in chicago. a person with a gun approached the group and started shooting. hideya pendleton was not the shooter's target, however. on saturday in chicago, there will be a funeral service for hideya pendleton. the white house let it be known to be that first lady michelle obama will be at the funeral, which will make this even more of a national scale tragedy than it already is. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell.

have a great night. feeling sorry for karl rove yet? he is having a lot of trouble getting republicans to listen to him these days. maybe he shouldn't have wasted 100 million of their dollars on the last election. >> we >> will the republican change the substance of their position? >> we need to do better. >> what's going on inside the republican party? >> they've gotten spanked a couple of times. >> better conservative candidates and win. >> on the official republican side, you have karl rove. >> karl rove has a new super pac to get rid of candidate like steve king. >> some people believe to get rid of todd akin. >> the female body has ways to shut that down. >> the republican party ought to split. >> better conservative candidates and win. >> but they are not walking the walk. >> washington has to deal with its spending problem. >> the looming budget war. >> i've had enough of it.

time to act. >> we've seen the republicans playing game. >> i love nancy pelosi. >> playing games with the budget. >> they recognize that the sequester is a bad idea. >> i don't like the sequester. >> something so terrible. >> i am prepared to do a big deal. >> you need to have a balanced approach. >> that ends this governance by crisis. >> to solve it, you need to have a balanced approach. >> game of drones. >> john brennan's confirmation hearing. >> whether he should be the next cia director. >> he's determined, he's strong. >> john brennan is going to face questions. >> a lot of questions. >> about the legal justification for using drone strikes. >> drones set to take center stage. >> to kill american citizens. >> these targets are ethical and justified. >> these are not the drones you're looking for. >> republicans are at war with karl rove. bush's brain, as rove used to be

known, when rove was thought to still have a brain, is on a mission to crush backcrap crazy republicans so the party will actually nominate more reasonable candidates who have a chance of winning general elections against democrats. today, a republican who writes big checks to karl rove told politico that the republican party, quote, has had too many candidates who are nut cases. i don't think anybody anywhere with any sense is going to want to elect a candidate who says if your daughter gets raped, it's god's will. give me a break, will you? the problem for karl rove is that he and his rich republican friends may be out numbered by crazy republicans. after rove announced his new super pac aimed at crushing republicans in favor of new republicans, the civil war has begun. the president of freedom works declared the empire is striking back. and long-time right-wing lunatic

brett wrote, it's a fight between republicans who not only want to run as conservatives but govern as conservatives. rove's super pac's spoke man jonathan ccollegio said this. bozell is a hater and he also, like, has a long sordid history. he has an ax to grind. >> many came to mr. bozell defense saying, mr. bozell is what we call in our movement a legacy. he has devoted his life to the cause of american conservative as did his father, brent bozell, ii, for barry gold water. you may have heard from his other uncle jim buckly, a former u.s. senator or brent's mother, patricia buckley bozell of the

both important writers in our conservative movement. let it start here. the president of rove's new super pac told "the new york times" this week that they are particularly concerned about the senate race in iowa because this guy might get the republican nomination. >> if there is a sexual predator out there who has impregnated a young girl, that sexual predator could pick that girl up off the playground at the middle school and haul her across the state line and force her to get an abortion to er rad indicate evidence of the crime and drop her off at the swing set and that's not again the law in the united states of america. >> that's the dangerously, of course, iowa conservative steve king. according to a new poll, steve king has a big lead for the republican nomination among

republican primary voters who obviously have no problem with craze zeef but as -- and this is exactly what karl rove fears. that same steve king in that same poll is running 11 points behind the leading democratic candidate, bruce braley. steve king sent an e-mail to supporters today that thrilled democrats. nobody can bully me out of running for the u.s. senate, not even karl rove and his hefty war chest. joy reid, these guys are making it fun. >> i know. >> they are just make making it fun. >> it's brilliant. there are always more sane people in the we call them the no nothings. they are encapsulated in the tea party and the only reason that karl rove was considered a genius, he managed to convince the crazy people in the conservative party that a methodist named george w. bush -- now, i grew up methodist. they are the most mild mannered

christian. they just nod affirmatively, that he was an evangelical right wing thrower like they are. he put one over on them and now they've figured it out. they've had a tacht of power and they want to run things. >> howard, what does the brent bozell side of the party think about actually winning elections? is that -- is that come into their calculations anywhere? >> i think somehow they think history will bend in their direction, if they just sit or stand firmly enough. that's what they are. that's what they do. and they are relatively more numerous and powerful now in the republican party than they've been in some time because in other respects the republican party is at low ebb. as the party reseeds, ycedes, te problem that karl rove has. a generation ago what joy talked about, when he put the george bush ma machinery together in texas, karl was able to crush

them in texas. it's a generation later now, these people have access to the internet and other avenues to get their voices out that they didn't have before, which is why i wrote in "the huffington post" that he's done. not that karl isn't going to keep raising money. but he can't be the architect when there's no building right now. >> joy, these dynamics have existed in both parties but in the republican party it's can completely out of control. the democratic party has a left wing that is dissatisfied with many of the things that are acceptable in the side of center and main territory of the democratic party but the democratic party seems to hold itself together under these kinds of tensions, much better than the republicans do. >> yeah, they do. and i think part of the reason is that the democratic left, you know, they sort of cut their teeth on anti-war activism.

once the war subsided, the difference is between moderate democrats and liberal democrats are a lot more subtell. a lot of very wealthy democrats are socially liberal. in the republican party, there are serious differences between the money wing of the party, which karl rove represents, and the far right, but the money people have been content to use the far right and they really have put one over on them for a long time. they only want their energy at election time. they want nothing to do with having abortion banned and all these other things. they've just been using them and now the gig is up. >> i think that's a fantastic is summary of it and karl rove is the embodiment of it to the grassroot tea party typeses. that's why i think he's done. he himself has become a symbol. he can't be the architect anymore. and they need a new leader.

they need what ronald reagan did a generation ago and they don't have it right now. they don't have it right now. >> i want to go back to the democrats on this because it seems to me that it could be, that because they have a wider range of interests and issues, environment, the drones question, guantanamo, banking reform, there are people who object to obama policy in every one of those categories but who completely agree with obama policy on abortion rights, on a very long list of other issues and it seems that they concentrate on what they agree on. >> right. >> when it comes time for election strategy. >> and i think things that are fundamental to the ideology of the left, they are much more frightened of allowing the right to take over. >> yeah. >> and to undermine those core principles and on things like drones, they have fight a principle fight with obama but they won't blow up the party over it. they want power.

they very much want to blow up the ideas of a sort of garden variety business republicans. they want to blow the whole thing up and remake the country in their image and because of 2010 they think they can and they don't want to let karl rove get in their way. they are not going to allow them to stop them. >> even if they are sort of intrigued on the hill, because they are going to cave on these various budget things going on, i'm talking about the tea party types, they are going to take it out at the grassroots and take it out in the next election cycles if they can because they are stymied in the house. boehner and the others will crush them up there, i think. but there's always the rest of the country. >> joy, there seems to be one state where karl rove doesn't have to crush a crazy republican seeking a senate nomination, that is massachusetts whereas predicted on this program scott brown is not running for senate and the problem is, they can't get any republican to run for senate. that's their problem in massachusetts. >> exactly. why would you? the last sort of republican

senator from massachusetts was mitt romney. it's an ill fit. that state is very, very blue. rove could not convince someone who is not only viable but fool the party the way, let's face it, scott brown fooled them that he was one of them. the independents in massachusetts who are the bulk are going to vote democrat. >> he was governor. >> governor. i'm sorry. >> why not run for senate? >> he tried that once, howard. he tried that once. >> try it again. >> it was not an easy fit. that's the problem in that state, howard, is that when the republican runs for senate, you get to attach mitch mcconnell to him and all. crazy republicans. when you run for governor in massachusetts, you don't have to worry about mitch mcconnell and alignment with those guys. >> it's ironic because attaching mitch mcconnell which seems like an insin rather thing to do has the just the opposite. they are the ones who view mitch

mcconnell as the establishment. which is pretty amazing. >> howard, before we go, as our senior kentucky panelist -- >> thank you. i'll treasure that. >> i said ashley judd is going to crush mitch mcconnell last night. all she has to do is announce. i want to call the race right now. i'm calling it for ashley judd. >> i'm not going to -- as the senior kentucky analyst, i have to maintain an open mind here. and i find that when you make predictions, people assume that you want a specific result. you're predicting. >> she's three points behind him in a poll. it's devastating. >> it is amazing. >> it is amazing. she's probably the first candidate or potential candidate who i've seen out of a washington party wearing a guard dean yeah in her ear and be within three points. mitch mcconnell has never been that popular in kentucky.

in the state of kentucky, partly because he's from louisville, is not that popular. >> joy reid and howard fineman, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. coming up, paul krug man joins me he to talk about whatever he wants. and in the rewrite tonight, the england that oscar wild would not recognize. england has gone from throwing oscar wild in jail for a crime of homosexuality to this week's vote house of kmons overwhelmingly voting for same-sex marriage. that's coming up. so, beginning today, my son brock and his whole team that's coming up. gsame-sex marr. that's coming up. asame-sex marr. that's coming up. lsame-sex marr. that's coming up. isame-sex marr. that's coming up. zsame-sex marr. that's coming up. isame-sex marr. that's coming up. ngsame-sex mar. that's coming up. same-sex marr. that's coming up. co overwhelmin voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. that's coming up. m overwhelmingy voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. that's coming up. m overwhelmingly voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. that's coming up. o overwhelmingly voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. that's coming up. n overwhelmingly voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. that's coming up. s overwhelmingly voting for legalizing same-sex marriage. . [ male announcer ] fast, reliable deliveries worldwide. fedex.

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. our big yet tomorrow is paul krugman who will join me next. that's why i'm wearing the glasses. it makes me look smart. i'm talking like noble prize winners. and it turns out, begging works. you don't have to take my word for it. lynn marie sager posted on our facebook page, your begging worked. i have liked you for years but

only just now clicked the button. that's right. i begged last night for people to "like" us on facebook. blessings white said, laurnls, you did not need to beg. we truly like your show. tomorrow just give folks a gentle reminder. three do it. see, that's what my team thought, is that you've been liking the show but overlooking the social media liking of the show and asked me to beg and so i begged. barbara adams said, couldn't "like" last night but gotcha this a.m. there you go. you can do it any time. dave said, well, i would "like" you tonight lawrence but i did ages ago. thank you dave and everybody else and it's night two of desperate begging to be "liked" on facebook. ♪ ♪

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i am prepared, eager, and anxious to do a big deal, do a big package that ends this governance by crisis where every two weeks or every two months or every six months we are threatening this hard-won recovery. >> the latest crisis faced in washington is the sequester, a package of drastic spending cuts, which congress seems to have forgotten they actually voted for. congress now dreads the sequester they voted for. president obama has offered john boehner a way out of sequester

hell, a package that involves less dramatic spending cuts and elimination through the reduction of tax loopholes. >> they recognize that the sequester is a bad idea, but what they suggested is that the only way to replace it now is for us to cut social security, cut medicare, and not close a single loophole, not raise any additional revenue from the wealthiest americans or corporations that have a lot of lawyers and accountants who are able to maneuver and manage and work and game the system. and i have to tell you, if that's an argument that they want to have before the court of public opinion, that is an argument i'm more than willing to engage in. >> joining me now is noble prize winning economist paul krugman. he's a professor of economics at princeton university and author of the book, "end this depression now" which is now

available in paperback. professor krugman, you know what i do, i take notes. i'm going to be over here taking notes. i want to get your reaction to what the president said today about his eagerness for a big deal with republicans and what are the possibilities there? >> well, okay. i believe there is no possibility. >> exactly what i thought. >> and i hope that that is his plan, to sound reasonable and say, i'm ready -- >> he's done that in the past. >> that's right. >> done that thing, hey, i'm ready to do business, knowing that the nuts wouldn't do business. >> well, here's a question. sometimes in 2011 i'm afraid he was actually sincere and he had us all terrified. but right now i do believe, i hope but i believe it's political posturing, that this is his way of saying, i'm a grownup. the reality is that we should do nothing. the best thing to do right now is to kick the can down the road. we should not be having any spending cuts right now. close loop tax loopholes, fine, if we can do it. but the sequester is not serving

any loophole purpose. >> with these cuts written into law, what happens -- if we do nothing, then we are going to have these spending cuts. >> so it's not a good thing. now, there is -- it's kind of important to make the distinction. the debt ceiling was scary as hell. we didn't know what would happen. if the united states stopped honoring its debts even for a day, who knew what would happen to the world financial system. this time if it goes moont, it's not the end of the world but it's big. this is a substantial spending cut in a depressed economy. this is exactly the wrong time to have fiscal austerity of any kind and the defense spending cuts are job destroyers, just like anything else. so not -- this is not what we want to see happen. if it all goes through, it's a pretty significant -- it's enough to push us is certainly into rising unemployment, possibly even back into recession. >> i want to listen to something

that john boehner said about how we have handled deficits over the years. let's listen to this. >> at some point, washington has to deal with its spending problem. now, i've watched them kick this can down the road 22 years that i've been here. i've had enough of it. it's time to act. >> that is -- i'm trying to think of a word other than lie. kick the can down the road? we had a big tax increase in 1993 with president clinton along with big spending cuts. >> right. >> it was a deficit reduction package that worked. they continued to do more deficit reducing package with newt gingrich on the spending side throughout the decade and we're on our way to a surplus. >> that's right. i've been calling it the undecade, the 1990s has been written out of their record. they would have you believe that it was always the way it was under reagan and then bush. >> why don't they just say, leave off the clinton tax increase, which helped a lot, and just claim they did it for

spending cuts? >> because if they do, if they admit that something nice happened in the '90s, they have to say, what happened after 2000. because by making it everybody's fault, everybody is to blame, they make it nobody is to blame which means they themselves is not to blame. a lot of sen tur rift have adopted this theory, too. the fact of the matter is, there are distinct periods of responsibility and irresponsibility. >> there is this constant lie that you hear and it's taken as conventional wisdom. reagan went along with the tax increases in exchange for the spending cuts but we never got the spending cuts. yes, we did. >> yes. >> and we did indeed legislate half spending cuts in that bill. clinton did. half of it was taxation and half was real spending cuts. >> if you go back to when congress agrees to spending cuts, they actually happen. if you look under reagan, domestic discretionary spending was squeezed a lot.

it's not as if nothing happened. there are a lot of things that the u.s. government was doing in the 1980 that it was no longer doing in 1990. this is all -- it's all a story. it's about social security. we did a big social security reform package that included spending cuts by raising the retirement age back in 1985. so this notion -- it's a mythical history where nothing works except basically destroying the major safety net programs and it serves a purpose but it's not true. >> the -- back when the president took office and the economy was clearly in crisis and something had to be done, they went for a stimulus package and there were two main themes about the stimulus package. one was, we have to do this. the other was an attack that was filled with junk. the third was, this doesn't work at all. there was one voice, exactly one voice out there saying, it's not enough. you have to do more. you were ridiculed for saying

that. the president actually singled you out, i remember, in a press conference by name, saying i don't agree with him. have you gotten any apologies from the people who were absolutely wrong? >> no. i wasn't alone but i was certainly the only person -- >> you were on the microphone. >> that's right. and -- no. look, i've been in this business now for quite a while and nobody ever admits that they were wrong about anything. that's just the way the world works. i it sure looks right. i wish i hadn't been right. this was a once in three generation crisis and we met it it with a program that was better than no program but way inadequate. that was obvious in january 2009. >> don't we have enough evidence now in this era of austerity and other countries to say to the president and others in washington, okay, here is how the austerity programs have worked. >> yes. >> elsewhere. that shows us what we should do?

>> yeah. sometimes i say what we've been doing is performing unethical experiments on human beings and every place that austerity has been applied, there has been a slump. some places worse than others. whether it's ireland, greece, britain, it has had the adverse impact that people like me said it would. now, i think the white house does actually get this. at least the people in the white house who talk to me get it. they have made a decision, right or wrong, that the president is not going to use his bully bull pit to change their minds about macroeconomics. boy have we gotten this totally wrong. we've lost all of the lessons of history and we did it all wrong in this crisis. >> and it actually isn't that hard. the history on this is not that complex to have a reasonable mastery of it for political purposes. >> no. this is econ 101 stuff. >> yeah. >> it's been amazing, though. people -- policy -- people with

what i sometimes call very serious people -- i stole that phrase -- they believe what they want to believe. so they threw out all of the lessons of history, everything in the textbooks to believe in this stuff that cutting deficits is expansionary and how the deficit isn't an imminent threat even though the government can borrow at 2% interest rate and the result is if they didn't done that, we would more or less employment right now. >> paul krugman, i would love to talk to you all night but i have to go to commercial so this program stays solvent. thank you very much, paul. >> thank you. coming up in the rewrite, we will see a moving speech by a member of the british parliament in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in the house of commons. and oscar wilde is also in tonight's rewrite. ♪

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john brennan's confirmation hearing today for cia director was interrupted by protesters five times.

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now, i was encouraged last night when the president called and he said, as part of this effort, he is going to try to drive a more extensive discussion about these issues. >> on the eve of today's confirmation hearing for his nominee for cia director, president obama directed the department of justice to provide the congressional intelligence committee's access to classify documents expressing the legal classification of drone for citizens considered terrorists. the request for those documents came after nbc received on monday a document known as the white paper memo in which the office of legal counsel signed off on the killing of anwar al awlaki, born in new mexico and who was killed in an american drone strike in 2011.

protesters interrupted five times. >> please clear the room. please remove -- thank you. >> they won't even tell congress what country we are killing children in. >> please -- >> i would like all the names and -- >> we are going to halt the hearing. >> john brennan, who has been the chief architect of the drone program as the president's counterterrorism adviser defended using drone strikes. >> i think there is a misimpression on the part of some american people who believe that we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. nothing could be further from the truth. we only take such actions a a last resort to save lives when there's no alternative to taking

an action that's going to mitigate that threat. we need to make sure there's an understanding and the people that were standing up here today, i think they really have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government and the care that we take and the agony that we go through to make sure that we do not have any collateral injuries or deaths. >> a substantial majority of americans support the president' plan, the u.s. military using drones to carry out attacks and 83% said they support the use of drones in a washington post abc poll done last february. sam stein, this had to come up in this hearing today, especially with the release of the not so secret white paper, which i happen to have right here. >> nbc news all over it. >> and it's relatively a simple -- it's 16 pages but basically comes down to the

president may use force against al qaeda and its associated forces, as detailed in this white paper, in defined circumstances, a targeted killing of a u.s. citizen who has joined al qaeda or its associated forces would be lawful under u.s. and international law, targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat against the united states. >> they are saying, trust us. we know what we are doing. we know where the legal boundaries are. we are never crossing them. we have a system where there's little oversight over the drone program. for instance, we don't know what constitutes an immediate threat. we don't even know how they are determining whether someone is a member of al qaeda. what do you have to do to become a member of al qaeda? do you have to take a pledge?

when it comes to interrogation, we have fairly firm legal boundaries now. we didn't have them in place during the bush administration. we have them now. that's not the same as the drone program. what you saw during the hearing today was a bunch of senators saying, you have to be more forthcoming with what you're doing here. >> laurn, i thought john brennan was disappointing on substance. it's obviously true under gentleman neef sdwra and legal precedent that you can shoot foreign fighters. it's not a big question -- >> i read it in the white paper. >> the white paper, i think, is completely overexpansive in some things and with you should understand it to be the most aggressive of lawyering making an argument for their clients, the united states. it's not a binding precedence of any kind. within the executive branch. but more to the point, whether

or not they are a citizen is not the only question. we're talking about things way off the battlefield and people that have not, by anything the administration has released if the onus is on them, shown their allegiance. and the tough question that wasn't asked today, okay, 18 years old, you can target them. that means they are on the kill list. 16 years old, you can target them. mr. brennan, what about 15, 14, 11, 9? the law cares a great deal about consent and meaningful participation. contrary to what we have in the public debate and polling which shows, yes, in general you can do it. but when you get into american children off the battlefield as conventionally defined, i think you're in tough territory and i think brennan was wrong on that. >> well, this effort -- i don't even want to call it a war -- this effort has been off the battlefield since september 11th. >> what do we call a battlefield now? >> this i think is a very serious problem. i don't think it's a question that can be answered. these are all great questions. here's what i don't see. i don't see how, under the way

business is done now and how it's always been done, i don't see how any of the questions can publicly addressed. the amount of intelligence that they would have to open up and hand over to you to answer any of the questions you asked would presumably compromise everything that they were trying to do. >> i have a slight disagreement with that. i think you're right in the sense that you don't want to give away operational techniques that could be used against you, correct. but you can redact those from a legal memo and what ari is getting at, what i think a lot of other people are getting, if you are going to do this, you need to have a very firm legal ground on what you're standing because you're not the only president who is going to take this authority. there are future presidents that can use it. what happens when they use drone strikes the way we do? we want to set legal boundaries on this not just for us but for international. >> they have boundaries in here that are pretty clear. >> well, that, again -- >> the trouble is, we don't know what -- what you really don't know is, are they actually

adhering to what they say they are doing here? >> correct. >> and my point is, i don't know how you could ever discover that and believe -- and have the program -- >> their position right now, today, in court, under the threat of perjury in the new york times and in litigation is that the program's existence is classified. so their position is farther than yours. you're talking about operational details. the administration position -- and they are wrong, in my view -- is that the program's existence itself is classified. so there is room for -- >> here's a civil suit in federal court with the aclu and they are sending interrogatories and they are wanting to do depositions. they want the cia to testify in a sif suit openly and completely about how they do this operation. but that could never happen. >> somewhere between the administration position and aclu and lawrence o'donnell, there's something in between and the administration position is all the way out here in secrecy.

>> we are going to have to continue this in the very last word, we're going to let the cameras continue. sam stein will be able to talk then. we're going to go on and on after this. sam stein, ari fleischer, thank you very much. >> thank you, lawrence. same-sex marriage after a moving speech by a member of particle lent that you will hear, you must hear, next in the rewrite. what's next? he's going to apply testosterone to his underarm. axiron, the only underarm treatment for low t, can restore testosterone levels back to normal in most men.

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it's marching to the beat of a different drum. and where beauty meets brains. it's big ideas with smaller footprints. and knowing there's always more in the world to see. it's the all-new lincoln mkz. always forgive your enemies. nothing annoys them so much. so said oscar wilde who had many enemies to forgive. marriage equality, the british parliament, and oscar wilde are next in the rewrite. l tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it's carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. ♪ after all, what's the point of talking if you don't have something important to say?

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look who's getting smart about her weight. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. oscar fingle wilde was born in dublin in 1854. he married, had two children and finish writing when he was 35 years old. by then he had already become one of the london's most important men of letters and possibly the world's greatest wit. but that didn't stop england from charging him with 25 counts of gross indecencies and conspiracies to commit gross indecencies when he was 40 years old. the prosecution called young male witnesses to testify about the criminal sexual behavior oscar wilde engaged in when homosexual sex was a crime in england and most of the world. during the trial, the prosecutor

read a poem by lord alfred douglas that wilde said he admired and asked wilde to interpret one of the lines of the poem. the prosecutor's question was, quote, what is the love that dare not speak its name? os scare wilde gave a long answer at the end of which the court transcript indicates, loud applause mingled with some hiss. the sex crime defendant facing ruination as he sat in the witness stand answered the question this way. the love that dare not speak its name in this century is souch a great affection of an elder for a younger man, such a plato made the very basis of his philosophy and in michelangelo and shakespeare.

it is, in this century, misunderstood sue much misunderstood that it may be described the love that dare not speak its name and account of it i am placed where i am now. there is nothing unnatural about it that it should be so the world does not understand. the world mocks it and sometimes puts one in the pillary for it. that kind of honest and indeed nobel won him two years in the prison. 118 years after england sent oscar wilde to prison for a crime of loving men too much, the house of commons voted overwhelmingly this week to approve a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. the historic vote was cast after a six-hour debate. the highlight of which was a speech delivered by david lammy,

first elected to parliament at the age of 27. he shares some biographical points with barack obama. he was raised by a single mother and made he racial history at harvard law school. and david lammy was the first black britain to study a master's in law at the harvard law school after having already graduated from law school in london. his time studying american law obviously helped him frame the issue of marriage equality. >> it is, in the end of an organic journey from criminality to equality, for the guy community that began over half a century ago. this change is right. this change is necessary and the time is now. and there are still those who say that this is all unnecessary. why do we need guy marriage when we already have civil partnerships, they say? they are the same, separate but equal, they claim.

let me speak frankly. separate but equal is a fraud. separate but equal is the language that tried to push rosa parks to the back of the bus. separate but equal is the motive that determined that black and white people could not possibly drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same table, or use the same toilets. separate but equal are the words that justified sending black children to different schools from their white parents peers. it's an excerpt from the phrase book of the separatist. it's the same delusion that we borrowed in this country to say that women could vote but only if they were married and only when they were over 30. it is the same naivety that gave way for my dad, being a citizen when he arrived here in 1956, but refused by landlords and proclaimed no blacks, no irish,

it entrenched who we were, who our friends could be and what our lives could become. this is not separate but equal. it is separate and discriminated. separate and oppressed. separate and browbeated and separate and subjugated. so let us be rid of it. as long as there is one rule for us and another for them, we allow the barriers of acceptance to go unchallenged. as long as our statute books suggest that love between two men and two women are not worthy of marriage we allow homophobia to fester. >> oscar wilde was released from prison at the age of 42. he moved to prison where he lived in poverty and died at the age of 46. in prison he wrote, society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer but nature, whose sweet

rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where i may hide and secret valleys in whose silence i may weep undisturbed. tonight in england, oscar wilde would not have to hide in clefts in the rocks and would not have to weep in secret valleys. ♪ ♪ pop goes the world

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president obama once said he wants everybody in america to go to college. what a snob. >> one of my supporters said, this is my second amendment vest, the right to bear arms.

you like it? come on. >> i like it. >> remember that guy? he's back. >> 2016, are you going to run for president? >> i'm hoping for that. we have the chairman of the party here. i don't want to announce it in front of him but we've been talking and i'll be talking to a lot of other folks and we're certainly opened to looking at 2016. >> so it's definitely not a no? >> definitely not a no. >> joining me now, someone else who is open to looking at 2016, ana marie cox, columnist for "the guardian." there he is with his second amendment vest, as he calls it. looks like rick santorum is getting ready to run for vice president once again. >> well, you know, what does the gop need except for someone who is violently violent? i say against women's reproductive rights and for the second amendment because those things are working for them right now.

i think rick santorum's campaign is a bad are memory for the people looking at the gop and trying to figure out its future. you know, as someone who reports on some of the more interesting fringes of the gop, i mean, i welcome him to the race. and i think it's important to say that he is doing this. he is a true believer. santorum believes that this is a mission of his to compete in these arenas and that he is acting on faith in a lot of ways and i kind of don't want to make fun of that but at the same time, as someone who would like to see a vibrant opposition party, don't know if rick santorum is what the gop needs right now. >> let's take a look at the guy who everyone thinks is the leader of the vibrant opposition leader, marco rubio. let's listen to what he had to say. >> i really believe if i do the best job i can in the senate, then in a couple of years i'll be in a position to make a decision about whether i want to run for re-election, you know, leave politics and give